McIver's Mission

by Brenda Harlen

  "Now that brings to mind all kinds of interesting possibilities," he said.

  A reluctant smile tugged at her lips. "Go home, McIver."

  "All right," he agreed, and drained the last of his coffee.

  Arden followed Shaun to the door. She should have been relieved that he was leaving, but now that his departure was imminent, she wasn't so eager to see him go. She'd enjoyed the verbal sparring, the chance to think about things other than the hellish day she'd had, and she didn't want to be alone with the memories and regrets that plagued her.

  As if sensing the direction of her thoughts, Shaun paused with his hand on the doorknob. "Are you sure you're okay?"

  "I'm fine." Or she would be, anyway. If there was one thing she'd learned over the years, it was how to take care of herself.

  Still he hesitated. "You know you can call me if you need anything. Anytime."

  It was a nice thought, but she couldn't—wouldn't—take him up on it. "Go home, Shaun."

  He smiled, and her traitorous pulse skipped a beat before she ordered it to behave. She wasn't going to get all giddy and weak-kneed just because Shaun McIver smiled at her. But she couldn't help the way her breath caught in her throat when her eyes met his, watched them darken.

  Something crackled in the air between them. Something powerful and unexpected and just a little scary, and if her brain hadn't seemed to shut down, she might have stepped away. Instead, she stood rooted, mesmerized.

  He leaned toward her, and if Arden didn't know better she might have thought he was going to kiss her. But she did know better, and she knew—

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  Whatever it was Arden thought she knew slipped from her mind as Shaun's lips touched hers.

  She watched his eyelids lower, felt her own flutter, then close. In darkness her other senses were heightened, the impact of the kiss magnified. The touch of his lips sent tingles down her spine; the musky, male scent of him clouded her brain; and she lost herself in his kiss.

  His lips were warm and firm as they moved over hers with a mastery that was either pure God-given talent or the result of much practice. A mastery that didn't so much coax as demand a response. She responded, and demanded in turn.

  The sensations that stirred inside her were as unwelcome as they were unfamiliar. She'd been kissed by more than a few men in her thirty-one years, but she'd never been kissed like this. The heat building inside her was like an inferno: burning, raging, devouring. Desire wasn't a new emotion, but the intensity of this desire baffled her even as her mouth moved against his. Had any of her brain cells been functioning, she might have pulled back. She might have recognized this as insanity and withdrawn from it. But that first touch of his lips on hers had abolished all rational thought, leaving only edgy, achy need.

  When his tongue slipped between her parted lips and stroked the ultrasensitive ridges on the roof of her mouth, she almost moaned. He tasted of salsa and coffee and man: spicy and potent and hot.

  She vaguely registered the pressure of his hand on her back, drawing her slowly but inexorably closer to the hard length of his body. She didn't, couldn't, resist. Her arms wound around his neck, her breasts crushed against the solidity of his chest. His heart beat against hers, as fast and heavy as her own.

  His hands slid lower, cupped her buttocks, positioned her more firmly against him. She could feel the evidence of his arousal, and the answering, aching heat between her thighs. She wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him. It was irrational, insane, but it was real. She wasn't the type of woman to indulge in meaningless sex. She didn't have casual affairs. She'd never been tempted.

  But she was now, and she was dangerously close to giving over to her impulses and dragging Shaun to the floor with her.

  It was Shaun who drew back, easing his lips from hers with obvious reluctance. His hands moved up to her hips, held her steady. She might have pulled away, if she'd been sure her legs would support her.

  "That was … um…" She swept her tongue along her bottom lip nervously. "Unexpected."

  "Yeah," he agreed, the husky tone of his voice making her wonder if he'd been as affected by the kiss as she'd been. "And probably not wise."

  Although she could think of a dozen reasons why she knew it wasn't smart to kiss him the way she just had, she wasn't sure she appreciated his commentary on the matter. "You kissed me," she reminded him.

  He grinned. "You kissed back pretty good."

  Arden felt color flood into her cheeks. "You were leaving," she reminded him, managing to pull out of his arms.

  "Yeah, I guess I was."

  But still he hesitated, and it took more willpower than she'd known she possessed not to ask him to stay.

  "Good night, Arden."

  Then he was gone.

  It was the sound of the door latch clicking into place that mobilized her, and Arden moved to engage the dead bolt. Then she leaned back against the locked door, her knees as limp as overcooked spaghetti, her lips still tingling.

  * * *

  Arden awoke Saturday morning feeling rested, and she realized that the previous night was the first since Denise and Brian were killed that she'd slept deeply, peacefully, without the nightmares that had recently plagued her.

  She sat up in bed, frowning as hints of a dream nudged at her subconscious.

  Not a nightmare; a dream.

  A dream about a man.

  A kiss.

  She touched her fingertips to her lips. She could still feel him there. Taste him.

  Shaun.

  She covered her face with her hands.

  The last thing she needed was to be fantasizing about her cousin's husband's brother. Despite the events of the previous evening, Shaun McIver was the last man in Fairweather she would consider getting involved with.

  Not that he'd offered her anything more than dinner, she reminded herself. She wouldn't put too much stock in the fact that he'd flirted with her. To men like Shaun, flirting was as natural as breathing, and he'd only paid attention to her because she'd cried on his shoulder.

  What had come over her? She never lost control like that. Not since she was ten years old and Aunt Tess had brought her to Fairweather. Maybe the tears had been building up for too long. She knew she could represent her clients better if she viewed their cases objectively, and for the most part, she managed to project an image of detached professionalism. But it wasn't in her nature to shut off her emotions, and she'd never managed to distance herself from others' problems.

  In the six years since she'd been out of law school, hundreds of clients had passed through the doors of her law office. Those who could afford to paid an outrageous hourly fee for her passion and expertise and thus subsidized those who could only manage a reduced rate. Some paid nothing at all. She didn't like to turn away a client; she wouldn't turn away someone who needed her.

  Denise Hemingway had needed her. Arden had first met Denise at the women's shelter six months earlier. It wasn't the first time Denise had gone to the shelter, but it was the first time she'd shown a willingness to discuss leaving her husband. Still, it had taken four more months—and several more beatings—before she'd done so. Only after her husband knocked their four-year-old son down a flight of stairs had Denise realized it was crucial to get out. Not just for her own sake, but for her child's.

  Arden had got Denise a restraining order against Eric Hemingway and a judgment for interim custody and child support. Denise and Brian had both gone into counseling, Denise was actively seeking employment, and Brian had just started school. Arden had believed that things could only get better for them.

  She'd been wrong.

  She'd never forget Denise and Brian, but she knew she had to put the tragedy behind her and move on. She had to believe that she could still help other women, or there would be no reason for her to get out of bed in the morning.

  Arden spent a few hours at the women's shelter, answering questions and dispensing legal advic
e. If one woman listened, if one woman managed to break the pattern of abuse, she knew the time was well spent. Just as she also knew that most women would return to their homes, their partners, the abuse. Even more never found the resolve to leave at all. And those were the ones whose lives, and those of their children, were in danger.

  She sighed, again remembering Denise and Brian. Their deaths had proven that leaving isn't always enough, and that a restraining order is no match for a gun.

  Arden also knew that it was next to impossible to protect someone from an unknown threat. On her way home from the shelter, she stopped at the police station, anyway.

  She sat in a hard plastic chair across from Lieutenant Creighton's desk and studied him. Early thirties, she guessed, with hair so dark it was almost black, eyes a clear and startling blue. Today his jaw was unshaven and his eyes showed signs of fatigue. Still, he was a good-looking man, and she wondered why he failed to make her heart race and her blood heat the way Shaun McIver could do with a simple smile.

  "Ms. Doherty. Good morning."

  "I got another letter," she told him, carefully lifting the envelope by the corner so as not to destroy any fingerprints that might be on it.

  "Today?" he asked, already starting to scrawl notes on the legal pad on his desk.

  "Last night," she admitted.

  He looked up at her and frowned. "I gave you my pager number. Why wasn't I contacted right away?"

  "I didn't think the delivery of another letter was an emergency." It was the third one she'd received, after all.

  "You haven't opened it."

  "I didn't want to contaminate it," she explained. And she wasn't sure she wanted to know what it said. "This one—" she swallowed "—was delivered to my apartment."

  His head came up, his eyes sharp, concerned. "With the rest of your mail?"

  "No. It wasn't in the mail slot. It was under my door."

  "You should have called me," Creighton said, putting on a plastic glove before picking up the envelope.

  Arden nodded again. She couldn't admit that she'd forgotten the letter—and everything else—when Shaun had kissed her.

  Creighton sliced open the flap and withdrew the single sheet of paper inside. When he unfolded it, she could see that the words on it were in the same careful block print and the same red ink as her name on the outside of the envelope.

  "YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE."

  She wrapped her arms around her waist and leaned back in her chair, as if she could ward off the threat by distancing herself from the letter.

  "We'll send the letter and the envelope to the lab to check for prints."

  Arden nodded, but she knew better than to expect that they would find anything. The only prints on the other letters had been her own. "Oh, um, a friend of mine picked the envelope up off the floor," she told him. "His prints will be on it."

  "Who?" Creighton asked.

  "Shaun McIver," she said, unaccountably embarrassed.

  "Colin McIver's brother?" Creighton asked. "The lawyer?"

  Arden nodded.

  "I played peewee hockey with Colin," he told her. "Even then we knew he was going to be a superstar."

  "Colin's married to my cousin," Arden told him, wondering why she felt the compulsion to share this information. Maybe to somehow explain Shaun's presence at her apartment Friday night. Not that it was anyone's business but her own.

  "Small world," Creighton said.

  Smaller town, Arden thought wryly.

  "As a member of the local bar association, his prints will be on file. That will make it easy to isolate any unknowns."

  "There weren't any prints on the other letters."

  Creighton nodded. "There probably won't be on this one, either, but we have to go through the motions. Sometimes these guys get sloppy."

  Arden didn't think so. Every step this guy took had been planned with care and deliberation. He wouldn't slip up.

  Lieutenant Creighton pulled copies of the other two letters out of the file. Arden glanced away as he laid them side-by-side on the top of his desk. The bold lettering was ominous and compelling, drawing her gaze reluctantly back to the pages.

  "YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN I WOULD FIND YOU."

  "YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO INTERFERE."

  The first note had been delivered to her office. She'd found it within the stack of regular mail, although the envelope bore no postage or address, just her name scrawled in the same bold lettering. That had been almost two months ago. The second had also been delivered to her office, about three weeks later. But it was this last letter, delivered to her home, that increased her feelings of trepidation. Somehow she knew this wasn't a prank, an empty threat. The letters were a warning of something to come. But she didn't know what or why.

  "You're sure you have no idea who might have sent these letters?"

  She shook her head. "If I did, I'd tell you."

  "This one—" Creighton pointed to the first letter "—suggests that you're acquainted with your pen pal."

  Arden wrapped her arms tighter around herself and pushed away the painful memories that nudged from the back of her mind. More than twenty years had passed since Aunt Tess had brought her to Fairweather; there was no reason for Gavin to look for her now. Mentioning her stepfather's name, reliving the humiliation and the pain, would only hurt her again. She refused to give him that kind of power. "If I thought I knew who was doing this, I'd tell you."

  "An ex-boyfriend?" Creighton prompted.

  Arden's thoughts drifted from Gavin to Brad. But the way their relationship had ended was unlikely to suggest that he was obsessed about her. "No."

  "A beautiful woman like yourself must have admirers."

  She frowned.

  He held up his hands. "I didn't mean any offense," he said. "It's just an objective observation."

  "I'm sure it's not an ex-boyfriend."

  "A rejected suitor, perhaps?"

  Arden rolled her eyes; Creighton shrugged.

  "You know as well as I do that almost one-third of all violent crimes against women are perpetrated by their partners or former partners."

  "I know," Arden agreed. "And I know this isn't a boyfriend, an ex-boyfriend or a wanna-be boyfriend." That was all she was going to say without admitting outright that she hadn't had a date in the past two years.

  "Okay," Creighton relented. "Then we're back to considering that the threats must be related to one of your cases."

  "That seems like the most reasonable explanation," she admitted. "But I've gone through all of my files, concentrating on new clients in the few weeks preceding the arrival of the first letter, and nothing strikes me as out of the ordinary."

  "I'd like a list of those clients," Creighton said.

  Arden hesitated. "I can't breach confidentiality."

  "I don't need any details," Creighton said. "Just names."

  She hesitated, hating that her fear outweighed her sense of professional obligation. "All right."

  * * *

  When Arden returned home after her meeting with Lieutenant Creighton, Shaun was seated on a bench in front of her building, his long, denim-clad legs stretched out in front of him. Her heart gave a little sigh. No man should look so good.

  One of his wide-palmed hands idly stroked Rocky's back as he chatted with Greta Dempsey. The dog's tongue was hanging out of his mouth, his eyes closed. Arden couldn't blame him. It was all too easy to remember the feel of those hands on her back, stroking, seducing, and she'd been pretty close to drooling herself.

  She shook off the memory and stepped closer, heard the musical tinkle of Greta's laughter. The older woman's eyes sparkled and her cheeks were flushed, confirming to Arden that her own reaction wasn't unique. Women—young and old and in between—adored him.

  Shaun's lips curved in response to something Greta said, and all Arden could think about was how it felt to have those lips on hers. How much she wanted to feel them again.

  Greta spotted her first and waved her o
ver. "Arden, I was hoping to catch up with you. I have a plate of warm oatmeal-raisin cookies with your name on them."

  Arden stepped toward them. "I'm going to have to buy a new wardrobe if you keep baking me cookies."

  Greta dismissed the comment with a careless wave of her hand. "A few extra pounds won't do you any harm. A man wants a woman with soft curves he can cuddle up to." She turned to Shaun and winked. "Isn't that right?"

  Shaun grinned. "I won't argue with that."

  Greta nodded, satisfied. "Well, then. Come on upstairs to get the cookies. You can take them to Arden's apartment to have with your tea."

  "I haven't invited Mr. McIver up for tea and cookies," Arden said dryly.

  "If you're a smart woman, you will," Greta said then gave a gentle tug to Rocky's leash. "Come along, sweetie. We don't want to miss Jeopardy."

  "I'm sorry," Arden apologized to Shaun after Greta and Rocky had disappeared inside the building. "She's a wonderful lady who just can't seem to mind her own business."

  "She cares about you," Shaun said simply.

  "She's obsessed with finding a nice young man for me to settle down with."

  "I got that impression."

  Arden cringed. "What did she say to you?"

  "It wasn't what she said so much as how she said it. Greta Dempsey could teach the members of the Fairweather P.D. a thing or two about interrogation," he said.

  "I am so sorry. She doesn't seem to understand that I'm not looking to settle down."

  "You don't want a husband and two-point-two kids and a house with a white picket fence?"

  She lifted an eyebrow. "Is it my turn to be interrogated?"

  He flashed her that quick, sexy smile. "I'm curious about you, Doherty."

  "Why?"

  "I'm not sure," he admitted. "But when I figure it out, I'll let you know."

  "Are you going to tell me why you're here?"

  He held up a tape measure. "To take measurements. For your shelves."

  "Oh."

  "You forgot?"

  "Actually, I thought you'd forget."

  "Why?"

  "Because I didn't think you really wanted to build shelves for me."